


my hands wipe out the ghosts

by annperkinsface



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 04:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annperkinsface/pseuds/annperkinsface
Summary: There was supposed to be time.It's all he can think after, above the static in his brain and cotton in his ears, a lesson Roxas should have learned in his first and second life: there's never as much time as you think.





	my hands wipe out the ghosts

There was supposed to be time.

It's all he can think after, above the static in his brain and cotton in his ears, a lesson Roxas should have learned in his first and second life: there's never as much time as you think. He shutters himself away on the ride back to Twilight Town, finds a corner of the Gummi ship and sits, staring at his hands, remembering how looked Sora in the sunset, dissolving into light. Here one moment, gone the next. Roxas smiles bitterly, closing his eyes against the ache. Isn't that how it always is? You'd think he'd be used to it by now and yet—

And yet—

A hand over his. Small, calloused, just a little cold. Xion. Roxas exhales shakily and turns into her without opening his eyes. "It's not fair," he says.

He lets Xion lean in, press her forehead to his. "It never is," Xion says and they stay like that, just breathing each other in, stray wisps of her hair tickling his forehead. It's a comfort just to feel her, a comfort he wouldn't accept from anyone else. Roxas turns his hand over, grips her fingers. You're real, he thinks. I'm real. No one's going away.

But that's the thing: someone did.

"I'd feel it," Roxas says, "if he was gone. I'm his damn Nobody, right? Or was. I think—I think I'd feel it." The silence is thick, sharp with horrifying possibility. His eyes ache and ache. Roxas somehow finds the courage to open them. He swallows, seeing his grief reflected in Xion's face. "Wouldn't I?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

That night he shies away from summoning Oathkeeper and Oblivion. Morning comes and light that should be soft on his face is harsh, grating, and Roxas squeezes his eyes and drags his threadbare quilt up and over his head, cocooning himself until everything stops feeling so sharp, like he’s going to catch himself on the edges whether he wants to or not. He lies back in the sheets, keeping his eyes closed as he inhales, exhales, reveling in the way his ribs expands with every breath. He wriggles his toes, flexes his fingers, and Oathkeeper and Oblivion materialize without him consciously reaching for them: warm, humming with life in his grip, and fear and confusion swell his throat shut.

Inside his ribcage Roxas' heart thuds and thuds, the rhythm almost damning.

 

 

* * *

 

 

("Sora,” Roxas says, the sound wrenched out of him. It surprises even himself and guilt blooms bright and hot when Sora stops, turns, kind even when tired and pale, a bone deep exhaustion in his eyes and face. There's no time to delay but Roxas swallows, clenching his fists, fumbling for words that could express—everything.

“Thanks,” Roxas says, finally settling. “You never gave up on me, not once. That's—" He blinks furiously, mouth pinching in frustration, and exhales, shaking his head ruefully. "Thanks."

The dust of the last battle has yet to settle. Sora looks like he has aged a lifetime overnight but his eyes brighten, just slightly, his own mouth curving involuntarily. "You're welcome," Sora says and Roxas remembers lying in bed in The Castle That Never Was, holding a hand to the empty cavern in his chest and wondering: what is a heart, really? He looks at Sora, all heart even when it hurts, and feels like he understands.

It's more than soft tissue, more than vessels and capillaries; it's Axel's arms encircling their trembling shoulders; it's Xion's eyes, wide and wet; it's Sora's sunken, grief carved face, smiling just for him.

I'm glad it was you, Roxas thinks, not for the first or last time, wanting to hold Sora's hands for real and not as a figment of a dream, cradle them as his tongue trips over all the words trapped behind his teeth. "Go on," he says instead, taking a deliberate step back. "We're connected, right? As long as we are I know you'll always find your way back." He smiles, a tender, aching thing, all bright eyes and empty hands. "You lit the way for me. I know you can do it for her."

Surprise flickers over Sora's face then pleasure. His eyes go soft; his mouth goes softer. "Thanks," Sora says, a smile in his voice. "That means a lot." He turns. Pauses. Turns back, eyes bright with intent, and says: "Roxas?"

"Yeah?"

Roxas remembers this, a memory he will later turn over and over in his head whenever sleepless in bed, staring up at the ceiling: Sora smiling wide and bright, a snapshot of color in a bleak desert landscape, making Roxas' fledgling heart trip sideways.

"Welcome home.")

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Maybe it doesn't mean anything,” Roxas says.

Xion and Axel look incredulously at him across the kitchen table. Roxas firms his mouth and mulishly eats his cereal, maintaining pointed eye contact all the while.

"You're kidding, right?” Axel says. “You know I love ya, buddy, but….how can it not mean anything?”

Roxas sighs, puts down his spoon. "Think about it," he says. "They may have been his to start with but answer this—when's the last time Sora used Oathkeeper or Oblivion?" A pause. Roxas swallows, trying not to hunch his shoulders, feeling that inexplicable vice grip of fear again on his heart, throat. He pushes through it: "Maybe it just means they're mine completely even if I was just borrowing them originally."

"Those things don't preclude each other, though," Axel points out. "They might be more yours than his, but they are still a manifestation of your connection to Sora, right? So following that logic you have to be connected to Sora to summon them ergo Sora has to still be around in some capacity."

It is now Roxas and Xion's turn to stare. "Did you just say ergo?" Roxas asks, smiling despite himself. "Nerd."

“Nice vocab, Axel,” Xion compliments.

“You're a bunch of jerks," Axel says more than a little fondly. "C'mon, you know I'm right."

Roxas doesn't know about right but— "Xion," he says. "Have you...?"

Xion nods, looking discomforted in a way that makes Roxas frown in concern. "Yeah," she says, holding out her hand. The Kingdom Key materializes in her grip. She turns it over, a strange wistfulness in her face, before letting it wink out of existence. She looks down, clenching her hands. "But I don't know if it counts. I mean...mine is just a copy, right? Yours is the real deal, not a sham."

"It counts," Roxas says fiercely. "Your Keyblade isn't a sham, okay? It's real and it's yours. If Sora were here he'd tell you the same thing but since it's just me I'll tell you Riku is an idiot and is long overdue for a punch to the face."

Xion looks up and smiles, laughs. It's how she should always look, Roxas thinks, finding it impossible not to smile along. "He's not so bad."

"He's really not," Axel says. "But Roxas is right. Your Keyblade isn't any less real than his are."

"Thanks guys," Xion says, pleased. "But then I don't know what it means or if it means anything." Her smile fades, eyebrows looking thoughtful. She looks at Roxas and his throat tightens, something about her stare making Roxas feel seen. Quietly: "That's why you're scared, right?"

A denial rises to his lips—I'm not—but it's the truth and Xion's never shied from painful truths in all the time he's known her. Roxas swallows it, nodding his head and looking down. "Yeah,” he says, just as quietly, staring at the spoon, the bowl, his empty useless hands. Thinks about hope, how it's bright and tantalizing but also painful. He doesn't want to pin his heart on maybe's but sometimes that's all you get. The card you're dealt, Luxord would say, and Roxas thinks of Sora, taking that leap of faith for him, for Kairi, for any person who just needed someone to believe in the impossible and grasp hope with both hands.

Hasn't Sora worked with worse odds?

Roxas looks up, finds Xion and Axel patiently waiting for him, their love and support a universal truth, and it overwhelms him sometimes just how lucky he is to have them. He straightens, exhales. Smiles. "Sora never gave up on me," he says, grasping hope with both hands, steely resolve in his eyes, in his heart. "I'm not giving up on him."

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Maybe you don't need to look as far as you think," Naminé says and it's a comfort to hear her voice, see her face, even when as sad and exhausted as it obviously is.

Roxas' forehead creases. He's taken his phone and is sitting out on the balcony of their apartment. They have a folding table and three chairs and a view of Twilight Town that can only be beat by the clocktower. The door is slightly ajar; inside he can hear Xion and Axel arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes. "What do you mean?'

On the other side of the screen Naminé smiles. It brightens her whole face, some of the shadows there fleeing in its light. "I mean," she says, "that you and Sora are connected. Dreams put your hearts in contact with each other before. Why should that change now?"

"So I should take a nap?" Roxas says skeptically, regretting it when Naminé's smile fades as quickly as it appeared.

"Sorry," she says quietly. "I wish I had more to tell you. I can't find Sora with my powers but that doesn't mean he can't be found, just that he's somewhere I can't reach."

"You've done a lot," Roxas says, frowning. "Especially for Kairi. How is that by the way?"

Naminé quiets, curling some of her hair behind her ear, pain in her eyes and the terse line of her mouth. It trembles and Roxas watches her swallow uselessly, watches her close her eyes and draw that trembling lip between her teeth. "Not good," she says, an exhalation of breath. A tear trickles down one closed eyelid and Roxas' heart and lungs tighten when she huffs out a laugh and brushes it away with her fingers, opening her eyes to look back at him with a gaze that is wide and wet. "I'm trying to be there for her but I don't know how much good it's been. She's been through a lot, you know? More than anyone should. It's all very painful and complicated. How she feels is painful and complicated."

"But you're there for her," Roxas says, smiling at Naminé in all her fragile strength, a strength that is all her own. He owes her so much. They all do. "There's no way she isn't better just from having you there. Your support—it means a lot. Trust in that even if you can't trust anything else." He sharpens his gaze, just a little, keeping his eyes and mouth soft. He doesn't want to be another thing that hurts her. "And Naminé? Remember I'm here for you too. We all are."

Naminé startles, caught between guilt and awe, like every act of kindness whether it be a seashell from Xion or kind words from a friend is too good for her to believe or personally deserve. Slowly, she smiles, a pale sliver of sun that warms him all the way through. "I'll try."

Roxas smiles back and imagines everyone lost in Sora's wake picking up each other's jagged pieces like seashells in the sands of grief, imagines them holding them up to the light and nodding decisively, saying: This will keep.

It's what Sora would want. More than that: it's what he wants.

Somehow that makes all the difference.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Destiny Islands' sun feels like deja vu on his skin, an echo of a life he's never lived. He wonders if this is how Sora felt in Twilight Town, his own throat swelling with longing at the gently swaying palms, the shells washed up in the surf, the endless expanse of blue overhead, stretching on and on and on.

He is standing on the pier of the play island, eyes closed, face upturned, when he hears a voice that makes his back stiffen: "Roxas?"

He turns. Riku stares back at him, gaze edged with polite caution, like Roxas is a wild animal that is going to lash out at any moment. Roxas' mouth pinches. "You can relax," he says sharply. "You look too miserable for me to punch."

He's almost surprised to find he means it; Riku looks rough, eyes lined with dark circles, a sickly pallor to his skin that is apparent even under the sun.

Riku blinks, visibly thrown. "Thank you?" He shakes his head, looking at Roxas in a way that sets his teeth on edge. "Why are you here?"

Roxas looks at him in flat disbelief. "Take a guess," he says, dryly, and Riku closes his eyes as if pained, looking struck.

"Sora," Riku says dully.

"Sora," Roxas echoes.

They sit on the pier, all of their messy, painful history tangled up in the careful, measured distance between them. Roxas catches Riku looking at him with burgeoning hope and expectation and exhales shakily, summoning Oblivion.

Riku's eyes widen. "That's—" He stops, swallows, fingers curling back just shy of touching Oblivion's winged tip. He drops his hand, fisting it in his lap. Firms his trembling mouth. "What does that mean?"

Roxas wishes he knew. All he has are his hopes and they're turning stale in his mouth the longer he looks at Riku. It doesn't come as easy for him as it does for Sora, that kind of wholehearted belief that the universe can be kind and just. All Roxas knows is that he is here despite all odds, a heart and body that is his and his alone, and even if the universe isn't kind and just Sora is, he thinks, and feels his mouth firm as he grabs Riku's dropped hand, wrapping it around Oblivion's hilt.

Riku startles but to his credit doesn't let go, staring in disbelief, the personification of Sora's memories of Riku humming with life under their joined hands.

Roxas looks sideways at Riku: once his enemy, now a familiar stranger. He smiles thinly. There's still so much between them but maybe there won't always be. Maybe that's the part of him that was Sora. Maybe it's all him. "What do you think?" Roxas can't help but taunt, softer than before. "It means he's out there somewhere. He's connected to you, to me, to all of us."

Riku bows his head, his shoulders shaking. Roxas lets Oblivion dematerialize and angles his body away, watching the sun play off the water, feeling Sora in the wind, the trees: everywhere and nowhere at all.

Eventually there is a touch on his shoulder, soft, barely there, and Roxas turns back to Riku who has at last upturned his wet face, revealing a watery smile. "That knucklehead," he says, softly. "He doesn't know when to quit, does he?"

Roxas snorts, eyes crinkling with gentle humor. “Do you?”

"No," Riku says gravely. "I don't." He looks at Roxas, eyes bright, and it feels like they are seeing each other for the first time. Face to face, heart to heart. Softly, he says: "Let's bring him home, okay?"

"Yeah," Roxas says, some of Riku's soberness creeping into his tone as he thinks of all the other promises made on this deck: some broken, most kept. "Okay."

Silence falls. There's really nothing else to say but Roxas sits with Riku for a long time, long enough for Roxas to believe that even if it isn't now one day it might actually be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They can't stay in suspended animation forever; in the end there is really only one place to go. Roxas leaves Riku standing on the beach, watching him tread a path Sora has a thousand times before, thinking about endings and beginnings and how they are often one and the same.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He finds Kairi sitting on the bent tree trunk, staring off into the distance. The sun has started to lower, casting everything in soft pink light. He sits down beside her and her eyes shift towards him and then back into space, her gaze unwavering from its fixed point. Her face doesn't so much as ripple.

"You're not surprised to see me," Roxas notes.

Kairi gives a barely perceptible shake of the head. "Naminé told me," she says, perfectly blank in a way that reminds Roxas startlingly of those early days in the Organization. He nods and sits with her quietly, looking off into the distance and wondering what she is seeing, if she is seeing anything at all.

“I have something for you," Roxas says after a while, summoning Oathkeeper and laying it across her lap. He presses it gently into her palm, taking her hand off the tree trunk and curling her fingers around the charm dangling off the hilt.

The minute her fingers brush against it he glimpses the first flicker of emotion he's seen from her: eyes wide, surprise blooming bright on her face. She looks like she is seeing a ghost.

"My lucky charm," Kairi says, hushed, a reverence in her voice and face and hands before she ceases all at once, fluttering hands going still. "Not that it's done much good," she says, blank once more, looking up with a pain twisted smile that hurts to look at. "Can't say my luck has been all that great so far."

"Maybe," Roxas says. "Maybe not. But it's called Oathkeeper for a reason. It's your promise to Sora, right? That you'll come back to each other no matter what?"

Kairi closes her eyes, laughing, and it sounds as hollow as she looks. "For all the good it's done him."

"You're here, aren't you?" Roxas says. "I'd think Sora would agree that is plenty good."

Kairi's face crumples. Her mouth trembles, thins, whitening into a line. "But I'm not supposed to be," she blurts out, all anger and anguish, and starts to cry but in a bitter, angry way that resonates with Roxas' core.

He doesn't speak or make to touch her, just bears witness as she exorcises emotion the only way he's learned how: by letting yourself feel it.

"I was supposed to protect him," Kairi says finally, throat working. "I told myself: Kairi, this time they won't leave you behind. You'll protect them, not the other way around. But it wasn't different. It was worse. And I died and Riku can't look at me and Sora's not here—" The tears keep coming and she scrubs angrily at her eyes and face, wiping trails of them off her cheeks. Her voice breaks. "I tried. I tried so hard but it still wasn't enough."

“But you're here," Roxas says, more gently, and Kairi laughs, the sound choked.

She presses a fist to her trembling mouth and opens red rimmed eyes, looking at Roxas in two parts wonder, one part disbelief. "But I'm here,” Kairi repeats, Oathkeeper still spread across her lap, and that there is the miracle, all of Sora's making: They both are.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He falls asleep under the stars, thinking about skies and destinies and promises strong enough to conquer death. When he wakes he is in a city he's never been, a sprawling metropolis the likes of which he's only seen matched by The World That Never Was. He's standing in the middle of an intersection, dizzyingly craning his head up at the buildings, when he feels someone grip his shoulder, forcibly turning him around. He grits his teeth, summoning Oathkeeper and Oblivion, and immediately drops them, letting them dematerialize.

"Sora," Roxas says, joy flooding him, reaching out to touch Sora's shoulders, feeling something slot into place when his fingers meet the fabric of Sora's jacket. All real, all tangible. Sora touches Roxas back, fleeting touches to his hair, his shoulders, a quiet awe in his face.

"Roxas," Sora says, beaming, but his eyes are wet. "You're really here, aren't you?"

Roxas laughs. "Idiot," he says, grinning. "Shouldn't I be saying that?"

Sora pulls a face and Roxas feels another laugh bubble in his throat just at the sight: Sora, silly and alive and here in front of him, looking entirely like himself, like someone Roxas doesn't know how not to love.

“You’re not dead, are you?”

“What?” Roxas says, incredulous. “No.” He pauses, narrowing his eyes at Sora. “Are you?”

Sora laughs, scratching his cheek. “Maaaaaybe.” He starts flapping his hands, panicking at the stricken look Roxas casts his way. “Don't worry! I'm working on it!”

“How exactly?” Roxas asks, voice flat.

“I’m playing the Reaper’s Game,” Sora says like that explains anything. “It’s kind of a long story so let’s just say I have friends in high places and leave it at that.” His face sobers, losing some of its brightness. Roxas’ heart turns over in his chest. “But this is a dream, right? I'm glad to see you, don't get me wrong, but...how are you here?”

He's the connection, Xemnas had once told him bafflingly, a cryptic answer for what should have been a simple question. Roxas understands now what he didn't then: what that connection was and how far it went. All the way to here, now, this moment in time: Roxas staring at Sora's face and remembering that time in the Keyblade Graveyard, swallowing back everything because he mistakenly thought there would be more time. He inhales sharply, stepping forward to take Sora’s hands. Sora looks down at them and then up at Roxas’ face, his own turning tender, perhaps remembering the last time they met in a dream.

“You looked for me," Roxas says. "Why wouldn't I look for you?"

“Oh,” Sora breathes, soft, wondering, and smiles down at their hands, giving them a squeeze. He glances up, so full of light that it almost hurts to look at him. “My mind will probably forget when I wake up but my heart won’t. I know it won’t. We’re connected, right?"

Roxas' heart and throat swell in tandem. He swallows through it, smiling brightly. "Yeah," he says, nodding, because if Sora's taught him anything it's that. Promises, connections—nothing ever really ends, not as long as you hold onto them in your heart. "Don't worry: I'll light the way this time. Me, Riku, Kairi—we all will."

"Don't forget Donald and Goofy," Sora says, grinning, and Roxas laughs, filled with quiet joy.

"How could I forget the duck?"

“Beats me,” Sora says with a smirk before it softens into something sadder, more wistful. The dream starts to blur around them, the surrounding high rises looking like a wet oil painting, all smudged at the edges. He lets go of Roxas’ hands, reaching up to put a hand over Roxas’ heart. “Time to go.”

It’s too soon, Roxas thinks frantically, but even a hour wouldn’t have been enough, not really. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to say goodbye, not after last time. But Roxas refuses to close his eyes or look away, keeping his eyes fixed on Sora, becoming hazier and less defined by the second but still beautiful, still everything Roxas wants to somehow keep for himself. “I’m coming for you,” Roxas swears, heart going double time in his chest. Sora must surely hear it, must know that it is all for him and no one else. He swallows. Swallows again. There’s no getting rid of the dryness in his throat. “I promise.”

And Sora—

Sora smiles the way he always does, achingly filled with love and light and hope.

"I know you are."

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [clenches fist, triumphantly raises it to the sky] i am free.....the longest fic my minimalist ass has written since 2016....and sora and roxas only interact in two scenes lmfao. 
> 
> and then the kairi scene ended up being my fave???? #justiceforkairi2k19


End file.
